We have made executive decisions to close the Neo Newspaper for an undetermined amount of time. The reason behind this is that we have gradually lost interest, activity and devotion. For a community project, we must have community participation. This thread will serve as a location for questions or concerns. The Newspaper will ideally reopen after Quierta and I reorganize it and pick a group of staff members that will be clearly devoted.

What you can do to help!

We tried making it clear that this project would benefit the users of the forum and, naturally, should reap activity. Somewhere along the line this assumption turned false.

Do you know any communities needing publicity? Show them us!Have any stories/pieces of work/etc. you'd like showcased? Show us!Do you have any ideas how to make the Newspaper easier to read/access? Tell us!

We're open to any and all suggestions. A community project like this needs interest to survive!

I think the reason why it hasn't got much attention is because of the activity decline of the site. If this was started about three or four years ago, I think the Neo Newspaper would have been much more successful.

The community aspect was important to help generate interest in forums and sections but original content was also a problem as a result (dead areas of the site), if the paper could integrate itself and the community a bit more I think it could still function as an informational hub.

As an example of that, you have Mac over in comics writing reviews on recent releases direct from Dark Horse, there are spotlight user reviews in the contributors area that could sub in as well. While it's good to have promotional pieces about communities it's also important to showcase and borrow when allowed from what we already have on the site.

One of the biggest issues that seemed to haunt things was getting content out there, given this is a content site it seems like it wasn't utilized to the fullest. Say Skyrim were to come out in May, by the end of the month there could be important FAQ's/guides highlighted, wiki tips and popular discussions outlined in the community as well. For new users or people hoping to get the game in the future it would be a key resource.

As a first outing it started strong but the challenge of new content seemed to overwhelm things, it might have been people thinking too hard about where the bar was for content, I'm not really sure. Instead of people feeling compelled to review the latest movie out there or find an art house film that was just amazing it could have been simple as well to review Plan 9 or Manos and talk about how awful they get.

Just some rough ideas. Engaging readers is always a challenge but there's always a way to do it and Neo provides quite a few resources on the site that can help in the journey.

As a first outing it started strong but the challenge of new content seemed to overwhelm things, it might have been people thinking too hard about where the bar was for content, I'm not really sure. Instead of people feeling compelled to review the latest movie out there or find an art house film that was just amazing it could have been simple as well to review Plan 9 or Manos and talk about how awful they get.

Not completely sure what Plan 9 or Manos are (). Our problem wasn't ever necessarily what to write about but about who would write it. We have games like Skyrim, Gears, Call of Duty, etc. that our members refused to write about because of a lack of dedication.

From what I'm reading from your post, writing about what I think is an older movie wouldn't help this?

I used those more as examples to how to make it more appealing to a wider audience of contributors, using stuff widely available and making it a bit easier to feel comfortable with the entry level requirements. People can relate to bad movies and many of them have gone public domain, alternatively tracking someone to do monthly netflix recommendations or other similar items might be seen as an easier thing for members.

While it sucks to have to start defining what contributions would be welcome, it's equally hard at times when the platform is just wide open as well. It might attract a lot of casual authors that come in, but hopefully there might be enough that any gaps have someone there trying out that month.

it was only by chance that i was in another thread in this forum, and curious as to what the other threads were, that i found this thread. that probably says a lot about the newspaper itself. i dont think i can recall much advertisement, let alone visibility for it. thats probably a good place to start, if you guys get this going again.

Justin and Quierta I'd love to write for this, I know neither of you probably even recognize me but I love writing and I'm very good at it. I could easily cover the whole PokeForum area's news in multiple articles, and possibly gather another contributor or two from the same area.

I can't really suggest much directly, as I only heard of this paper yesterday so I have no idea how it used to run or anything, but...yeah, I'd love to be a part of it. Hope to be included if anything ever starts up

Justin and Quierta I'd love to write for this, I know neither of you probably even recognize me but I love writing and I'm very good at it. I could easily cover the whole PokeForum area's news in multiple articles, and possibly gather another contributor or two from the same area.

I can't really suggest much directly, as I only heard of this paper yesterday so I have no idea how it used to run or anything, but...yeah, I'd love to be a part of it. Hope to be included if anything ever starts up

First of all, I have tried writing for the Newspaper, but I never really felt that the few articles I submitted were actually appreciated. It's not a pleasant feeling and something that I really didn't need on top of trying to revive a dead forum.

Secondly, everyone on Neoseeker is so focussed on bringing activity to their little corner of Neoseeker that it creates this weird sort of tension between the different forums. It's not a pleasant, welcoming atmosphere.

And lastly, the newspaper only goes out to people already familiar with the forums. This doesn't really help activity in general, at best, it can just shift people around a bit.